Alicante Archives – London Air Travel

Vueling Launches Gatwick – Alicante

Vueling is to launch a new route from London Gatwick to Alicante from early April 2019.

Vueling Airbus A320 (Image Credit: Vueling)

Vueling is to launch a new route from London Gatwick to Alicante from early April 2019.

The airline will fly to Alicante, a route well served from London, six times weekly from Sunday 7 April 2019.

Flights are on sale now at Vueling.

It is assumed that a codeshare with BA, which also flies to Alicante from Gatwick, will soon become available.

Vueling has not had a great time of late, with significant operational delays in the summer, partly due to periodic industrial action by Air Traffic Controllers in Marseille.

It has also had a slightly haphazard approach to the London market with routes spread across Gatwick, Heathrow and Luton with no coherent marketing message.

Vueling also flies from Gatwick to Barcelona, Bilbao, Florence, Paris Charles de Gaulle and Rome. It also serves Asturias on a summer seasonal basis and this route returns three times weekly from Tuesday 2 April 2019. From Heathrow, Vueling serves A Coruña and Barcelona, and from Luton it serves Amsterdam and Florence.

Vueling has recently acquired Flybe’s last remaining Gatwick slots. The times below don’t match the exact times of Flybe’s slots and more slots will be acquired from late October so it’s assumed further routes may follow.
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BAs launches London City – Manchester (sort of..)

BA will fly between London City and Manchester just once a week between Sunday 21 May and Sunday 1 October 2017.

London Air Travel » Alicante

BA CityFlyer Embraer at London City Airport

British Airways is to launch a new route from London City to Manchester.

Interested? Well don’t get too excited. There’s just one return flight a week and it only operates from Sunday 21 May to Sunday 1 October 2017!

However, there is method behind the madness. Allow us to explain:

London City is closed from Saturday afternoon to Sunday afternoon. As this would leave BA’s fleet of Embraer aircraft otherwise sitting on the ground, last year it ran a successful experiment of summer weekend leisure flights from Stansted. BA is now looking to extend this to other UK airports and Manchester is the latest airport to gain weekend leisure routes.

BA will offer weekend leisure flights from Manchester to Alicante, Ibiza, Malaga, Mykonos, Nice and Palma from late May to October 2017.

As BA needs to move aircraft from London City to Manchester to operate the flights, it has also opened this flight for sale to passengers.

Flights from Manchester are on sale now at ba.com. The only exception are flights between Manchester and London City which go on sale on 21 February 2017.

Please note that the timetables below are indicative only. There may be changes to the schedule depending on the strength of forward bookings.

Whilst food & drink should initially be complementary in EuroTraveller, at some point in the summer BA is expected to extend its Marks & Spencer Buy-On-Board to all London City flights and London Stansted and Manchester weekend leisure flights.

With the exception of Alicante, all of these routes are also served by BA from Heathrow and it should be possible to “mix and match” direct flights with indirect flights via London Heathrow (or via Iberia in Madrid in some cases). If booking connections take care not to book connections from different London airports as any travel between London airports will be at your own expense and not recommended.
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BA suspends London City – Alicante & Madrid

London Air Travel » Alicante

British Airways is to suspend its twice daily London City – Madrid route permanently from Sunday 29 January 2017. The airline is to also not proceed with its planned seasonal London City – Alicante service this summer. This was planned to operate from Monday 26 June to Monday 4 September 2017.

No specific reasons have been given for the cancellation. However, it’s a reasonable assumption that poor commercial performance is the cause. BA has yet to announce which routes will operate in their replacement.

Affected passengers have the option of a refund or being accommodated on alternative BA flights to Madrid from London Heathrow (served by some 13 return flights a day) or Alicante from London Gatwick respectively (which operates up to twice daily at various times).

If you have not already been contacted you should contact either BA or your traval agent.

BA launches seasonal London City – Alicante route

London Air Travel » Alicante

British Airways adds to its growing portfolio of summer seasonal routes with the launch of a new summer seasonal route from London City to Alicante.

The route will operate for some ten weeks from Monday 27 June 2016 to Monday 5 September 2016.

The route will be flown four times weekly on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesdays and Fridays. Flights will be operated using an Embraer E-190 aircraft in a two class, Club Europe business class and EuroTraveller economy class configuration. Flights can also be “mixed and matched” with BA’s daily services to Alicante from London Gatwick.

Flights are on sale now at ba.com.
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